A preliminary response to your very helpful inventory of puzzle pieces in “What Makes Us Different.” For me, what you do there does in fact suggest strongly that at least a preliminary “integrated (but not unified) field theory” of the sort we are working toward is beginning to emerge on the horizon. That said, I do want to urge that we include several other pieces in addition to the one you reserved for further discussion at the end of your sketch.

 The first of these pieces in my view should be the as yet unspecified “fifth dimension” of emergent cosmic reality, along with the nodal point that capacites its emergence. I don’t think that “field integrity” is possible without a working characterization of the fifth dimension. As you know, I suggested at the April conference the idea of “personal identity,” as the basic constituent entity of this dimension, and defined it in a hyper simplified way by the notion of responsibility arising from freedom as the fifth nodal point. Responsibility names the complex interactive process by which a person situates him or herself against the horizon of possible meaning relationships. In the expanded version of the brief paper I read, I tried to suggest some of the reasons for this move and to indicate some of its consequences. At the bottom of this conceptual nexus of issues is the basic assertion that each and every human being is always the bearer of a dignity which must be recognized as requiring absolute respect. This dignity has its origin in the arrival of the cosmic information exchange dynamism at a point which produces a self conscious realization of that dynamic, capable of plausibly asserting its capacity to take authentic responsibility for itself as an identity, to call its identity its “own,” an embodied meaning structure which can responsibly engage the whole of reality from the position of being a participant in that wholeness. 

To put it in an intentionally provocative formulation, you cannot have “values” or wisdom regarding the lived experience of valuing without identifying a value dynamic which is respected as “self-justifying,” or causa sui. If personal identity is not to be regarded as worthy of absolute respect, what then possibly could be? Social justification, in my view, cannot serve as such a self justifying basis of value – for reasons which I think are apparent but which we could certainly discuss further. 

This leads me to the specific missing piece I want to argue for including in our discussion – death as an irreducible dynamic of personal identity. I would put it this way: unless we have a fully elaborated “culture of death” including its physical, psychological, sociological, political, economic, artistic and creative dynamics we cannot possibly attempt to understand the “meaning of life” (or have wisdom). 

To forestall pointless confusion, let me quickly say that by death here I am not referring simply to physical demise, but to every entropic force which constantly penetrates personal existence in tension with the evolutionary dynamics of homeostasis, reproduction and growth of every form, “thriving,” in other words put in philosophic terms, death here refers to every dynamic of finitude in tension with every dynamic of “transcendence,” in personal existence and in culture. If some hear echoes of Ernest Becker in this, I’m happy to say that, despite the many legitimate criticisms that have been made of his work, I continue to find it an indispensable contribution.

 I suspect this may be hopelessly dense as an effective contribution to an email chain but, for what it’s worth I would certainly welcome your and all of our colleagues’ response to the suggestion.

Sunday best,

Frank